by H. M. Naqvi
When you think about it, the peculiarly American trope of escape has informed narratives spanning the western to the road comedy, from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to Thelma and Louise. It puts the old literary archetype, whether Mesopotamian or Greek, starring that old British knight or the legendary Omani sailor, on its head. The protagonists, often paired, are not in pursuit of golden fleeces or holy grails, like the heroes of yore, but are pursued, usually by the long arm of the law. They are outlaws or are rendered outlaws by the whimsical, uncharitable vicissitudes of the modern world. Like the residents of New Hampshire, they aspire to live free or die.
And though you root for the youthful antiheroes, you know damn well they cannot, will not succeed. In fact, you realize that they were doomed from the word go. They will never make it to the Promised Land.
Escape is not so much a destination as a frame of mind.
I was there.
Picking the hunting hat off my head, I flung it across the room, pulled off my boots on the way to the bathroom, peeled off my ribbed T-shirt, and stripped down to my hairless, tawny birthday suit. I figured the best way to get rid of the shakes was to take a nice long hot bath. Parting the shower curtain, I deployed the stopper and turned the faucet, but when I stepped into the tub, piping hot water scalded my sole. Hopping out, toes splayed on the slick tiled floor, I mixed hot with cold before lowering myself inside again. As the water lapped my legs, hips, the small of my back, my belly, my chest, I shut my eyes, searching for pinholes, penumbral shapes, streaks of light, but there was nothing there, not even a shadow or suggestion of a silhouette. I could only make out an expansive vista of darkness. I felt I was teetering on the ragged edge of the universe. One misstep, one slip, and I would totter, I would fall.
Suddenly I remembered I was all out of soap. At any other time, it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but at that instant, soaplessness became an epic, existential issue, one that demanded action, immediate resolution. Dripping and pocked with goose bumps, I hauled myself to the cabinet, where I surveyed the shelved supply of mistakenly acquired, malodorous deodorant sticks and a collection of spiky old toothbrushes I had not disposed of because of a middle-class childhood grounded in frugality. It was a year’s worth of clutter. There were several cardboard rolls of toilet paper, a fat, rusted can of Barbasol, and a blunt, hairy disposable razor. There was, however, no sign of soap. Instead, I came across an unopened, gift-wrapped box of Ativan, Lexotonil, Klonopin, or something like that, presented by AC after I had been fired.
Inside I found three strips, a year’s supply as far as I was concerned, embedded with twelve oval tablets each. Dumping the contents onto the faux-marble countertop, I came across the accompanying prescriptive literature. STORE AT CONTROLLED ROOM TEMPERATURE 20°C (68°-10°F), it began. KEEP IN COOL DRY PLACE. My gaze was drawn to the warning below:
Pre-existing depression may worsen during use. This drug is not recommended for use in patients with a depressive disorder or psychosis …
There was no doubt that I was quite delicate. Flipping the leaflet over to the other side, I read the section pertaining to overdose:
In mild cases, symptoms may include drowsiness, mental confusion, paradoxical reactions, and lethargy. In serious cases, and especially when other drugs or alcohol are ingested, symptoms may include ataxia, hypotonia, hypotension, cardiovascular depression, hypnotic state, coma, and, death.
The label might as well have read EAT ME. Peeling open twelve tablets one by one as if I were shelling pistachios, I crushed them in one hand and, leaning over the sink, bared my soul in the bathroom mirror. It was a futile exercise: as the steam swirled in ghostly configurations, I kept wiping the surface of the mirror with my free hand as if to perceive something real, corporeal, but there was nothing there. I began to bawl inconsolably, like a grieving child. Snot seeped into my mouth, and warm tears ran down my cheeks and dripped down my chin into the sink. It was a pathetic display. It had to stop. Licking my hand, I chewed several moist tablets as if I were chewing Tic Tacs. They tasted like aspirin, like chalky mush. I remember taking note of water cascading over the wall of the tub and spilling and spreading across the floor. Straddling the divide, I responsibly turned the faucet clockwise before losing my balance. I tumbled for the second time that day.
I felt numb, dead, like my father.
18.
The world had turned upside down; up was down and down was up, and I lay curled like a fetus on the floor, clutching the shower curtain as if it were the holy shroud of Turin. Unable to stir, I lay for a long time—I don’t know how long—like a fish out of water, wriggling one foot—I didn’t know which one—to make sure that I still could. I had water in one ear and a ringing in the other like a fire alarm. By the time I finally picked myself up, using the can for a crutch, and dried myself with a hand towel, I realized that the ringing was not in my head. Following it to the phone, I mechanically held the receiver to my ear. Somebody was speaking to me in a thin voice, in laudatory tones, but I was unable to follow. It was as if I were still under water.
Instead, I remember dimly regarding the concrete courtyard outside my window, taking stock of the changes in the topography: the barbecue grill had been put away, as had the other seasonal fixtures: the tiki torches and the two striped deck chairs where my squirrelly neighbor wiled away midsummer Manhattan nights, sometimes alone, sometimes with company, sucking cigarettes, sipping wine coolers, and gazing at the sky. All that remained was a thin strip of Astroturf, a pair of cigarette butts, a limp potted umbrella plant, and a bag of charcoal. The weather for cookouts and making out had passed. Thanksgiving was practically around the corner. Soon the city would become deserted as the natives traveled to laden tabletops in the hinterland. After the leftovers and heartburn, about the time the nostalgia settled, Christmas preparations would be in full swing: giant snowflakes hovering above Fifth Avenue, miniature worlds at display in the windows at Saks, and at Rockefeller Center, the massive fir would be lit by a million flashes.
The year before, I had watched a neighboring family of three from my windowsill perch, assiduously arranging bows, baubles, candles, and strands of silver and gold tinsel on the boughs of a Christmas tree. Presents were wrapped, eggnog and cookies were circulated at regular intervals, and once the decorations were secure, the prematurely balding thirtysomething father got up on a stepladder and picked up his child, who in turn strained to deposit a glass angel on the leafy summit. I thought I got the hang of it. In fact, that year I had resolved to get a tree myself. Although I did not really celebrate Christmas, I figured I could participate in the associated rituals.
The rituals of the only holiday I religiously commemorated were as familiar as the city: party-hopping, boozing it up, kissing strangers at the stroke of midnight. Although I did not have any plans for the big night yet, it was still early. I was quite sure that I wouldn’t be attending the festivities at Times Square to watch the apple drop. I had been only once, and it had been deathly cold, and crazy: people crushed against one another with pretzels and beer on their breath, yelling and blowing whistles into the subway, as if heading to the next party—Superbowl Sunday perhaps, or St. Pat’s Day, the Halloween Parade in the West Village. There’s always a party in the city.
All of a sudden I registered a voice on the phone. “Congratulations,” it said. “Expect a letter in two to three weeks outlining the terms.” Rhetorically muttering thanks, I hung up.
It took me several moments to appreciate that I had been duly notified of a fortuitous, unexpected development. It took me several moments to appreciate that the afternoon I attempted suicide, I had been offered a way out. Then I puked all over the place.
Although still dizzy and nauseous and sore, I threw on some clothes and grabbed the famous to-do list from the refrigerator door and dashed to get a phone card from the neighborhood bodega. It was time to call Ma, buy soap, TP, time to make things right. When you fall, Ma once told me, you get up, and when you fall again, y
ou get up again. Racing down the block with her dictum in mind, I turned the corner, narrowly avoiding collision with a family of three, only to be intercepted by the Moroccan, who, it would seem, had been lying in wait.
Blocking my path like a telephone pole, he extended his hand, proclaiming salam-alikum. Mumbling walaikum, I offered mine. “I not see you for long time,” he began.
“Yes,” I replied.
“I worry for you, brother.”
Attempting to extricate myself from his iron grip, I said, “That’s very kind of you.” I wasn’t in the mood for chitchat, but he wouldn’t let go.
“I brayed for you.”
Nodding as if I appreciated the tacit conversational subtext, I wondered if I really owed my emancipation to the Moroccan’s prayers, to divine intervention. “Thank you—”
“You bray too. Allah looks after His children.”
Although I had always believed that I had more in common with somebody like Ari or Lawrence né Larry than the Moroccan, I was reminded that we shared the same rituals, doctrinal vocabulary, and eschatological infrastructure, even if we did not read the same books, listen to the same music, hang in the same watering holes—I’m sure he did his hanging elsewhere—or subscribe to the same interpretation of history. Peering at me through the same round professor’s glasses, he asked, “You go somewhere?”
“I go somewhere?” I repeated.
“You go home?”
“Oh, no, no. I, um, was out of town.”
The Moroccan wasn’t buying it. Sucking his teeth, he crossed his arms and tapped his feet, gestures that could be interpreted collectively as yeah, bullshit. Figuring that it would be easier to disclose the nature of my absence to my sole well-wisher than to spin an elaborate web of lies, I leaned into him and said, “If you really want to know, brother, I was in jail. That’s why you haven’t seen me.”
The Moroccans eyes widened. “In the Bassaic County?”
“No,” I replied, taken aback, “in Brooklyn.”
“In the Metropolitan Detention Center?”
“How do you know?”
“My wife’s cousin. They take him.”
“My friend,” I said, “is still there.”
Shaking our heads, we both commiserated in silence for our fallen comrades, our brothers in arms. Then, glancing at the sky, he rhetorically asked, “What can we do?” I looked up as well. I imagined God looking down on us through the cloudy veneer. “Is in Allah’s hands.”
There was nothing more to say. Then the Moroccan thrust a copy of the Times in my hand. “Take it, take it,” he said, even though I didn’t care for the news. I tried to return it, but he was insistent. “Bresident Musharraf give speech today,” he said. “Read it, read it.”
“You are too kind.”
“You are my brother. You want something more?”
“Actually,” I replied, “I need a phone card, brother.”
As I dialed home from the only functioning public phone on 79th, I recalled the nine-hour time difference in the summer separating the Atlantic and Arabian coasts. Although it was after midnight in Karachi, there would still be traffic on the streets, and roadside diners on and off Bandar Road—Bundoo Khan, Student’s Biryani—would be chatting over milky tea. Above the fray, our ninth-floor apartment would be dark and still. The windows would be open, the faint caustic smell of mosquito repellant in the air. Ma would be asleep draped by a sheet, arm crossed over brow. If I were home, I’d be sleeping beside her.
The phone rang. A crosstown bus thundered past. “Hello?” I said.
After a pregnant pause, Ma replied, “Beta?”
“Ma—”
“Is everything all right?”
“Well … everything wasn’t all right … but now it is … so don’t worry—”
“Shehzad,” Ma interrupted, “it is nearly one in the morning. I am a little slow, and you are talking a little too fast. Now tell me again: why should I not worry?”
“Me,” I replied. “You shouldn’t worry about me.”
“You are calling at one in the morning just to tell me that I should not be worried about you?”
Taking a deep breath, I attempted to organize my thoughts. “Yes,” I began, “kind of. I actually have something to tell you. About three months ago, in the first week of July, I was let go, you know, fired. There were companywide layoffs. There’s been a downturn in the market, an economic recession, and after 9/11, well, companies have mostly stopped hiring.”
I could hear Ma breathing. I could see her massaging her eyes. She was probably sitting up by now, hunched and cross-legged.
“But don’t worry, Ma. About fifteen minutes ago, I was offered a job. It’s with this research house. I like the people. They want me to write financial reports. It’s something I can do and do well. They told me I’m a ‘great fit.’ It’s very promising. It’s a wonderful opportunity.”
My disclosure was met with silence, and for a moment I thought the line had dropped. Then Ma said, “If it is such a wonderful opportunity, beta, why do you sound unhappy?”
“I do?”
“Are you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, then blurted, “yes, yes, I am. I would have been okay, but there’s more.”
“More?”
“More I haven’t told you,” I replied, clearing my throat. “Last week Jamshed, Ali, and I were arrested on terrorism charges—”
“What?”
“We were arrested, interrogated, thrown into solitary confinement. It was crazy. They kept saying we were in possession of bomb-making manuals, terrorist literature. They kept telling us that we were in for life. I was certain that I wouldn’t see the light of day. But somehow, somehow, they let Jamshed and me go—”
“Thank God!”
“Then Khan Sahab had a heart attack—”
“Oh God!—”
“Don’t worry. He’s okay. I went to see him and he sends you his salam. He’s recovering—”
“Inshallah!”
“But Ali, he’s still inside. Mini Auntie’s in a state … I’ve been in a state myself. I’ve been feeling so helpless. There’s nothing I can do. What can I do?”
“Why didn’t you tell me, beta?”
“What do you want me tell you, Ma? That life’s changed? The city’s changed? That there’s sadness around every corner? There are cops everywhere? You know, there was a time when a police presence was reassuring, like at a parade or late at night, on the street, in the subway, but now I’m afraid of them. I’m afraid all the time. I feel like a marked man. I feel like an animal. It’s no way to live. Maybe it’s just a phase, maybe it’ll pass, and things will return to normal, or maybe, I don’t know, history will keep repeating itself …”
I stopped. I was talking to myself. Ma had fallen silent. She was probably standing, regarding the city lights through the lattice circumscribing the balcony. Although the brightest blazed from the Dentonic-Once-A-Day-Everyday billboard welded to our building, our balcony offered a panorama of the old city, from the great white modernist dome of Jinnahs mausoleum in the north to the spire of the grand neo-Gothic colonial relic, Empress Market, in the south. Bandar Road cut past below, connecting the landmarks and ferrying traffic to and from the sea. I could hear the purl of rickshaws over the clamor of crosstown buses; I could almost smell the smog, feel the breeze against my cheek. I heard myself say, “I want to come home, Ma.”
19.
In the end you make your peace and say your goodbyes, not necessarily in that order. You improvise because you didn’t anticipate the end, just like you were unable to anticipate the beginning. You procure several cardboard boxes—three or four will do—and dump things in unceremoniously: textbooks, papers, porn, picture frames, winter clothes, hunting hat, linen, Tupperware, stainless-steel lota, wash ’n’ wear pajamas, stale Chili Chips, one opened box of Ativan. You find you are unsentimental about the bricolage that contributed to the infrastructure of your formative years. You make one box for
the good folks at the Salvation Army, you mail another to an address in your hometown; you prepare a care package for a friend or two, and whatever doesn’t fit, you pitch. You leave nothing behind. It takes a mere afternoon to wrap things up. You don’t even break a proper sweat. Three efficient, limber-limbed Brazilians show up at the appointed time, address you in Portuguese, and stomping in and out in workman boots, haul everything else away. You pay them extra to haul the futon to the street, without scratching the floor. You sweep the place with a borrowed broom, you mop the bathroom with a kitchen roll. The place looks no different from the day you arrived, as if you were a squatter all this time, not an original settler. It’s easy come, easy go. You settle down on the floor, legs crossed, eyes closed, like an ascetic. You sit mute and motionless until there’s no feeling in your legs and time ticks to the sound of your heartbeat. When your good friend’s sister shows up unexpectedly in the evening, presenting a dish of gulab jamuns and a chaste, experimental kiss on the cheek, you are elated, you are touched, because genuine manifestations of kindness are infrequent. In turn you offer to take her out to the three-star Italian bistro around the corner because downtown seems far away.
The sun was setting on the West Side, catching windows and storefronts, and burnishing the streets with a rosy veneer. The natives ambled back from work, some in sneakers, some with ice cream cones, some with slim briefcases slung by their sides like schoolchildren. They stopped at bars along Amsterdam for happy hour, spilled into outdoor patios, and sipped sangria, soaking up the evening. It might have been the last nice day of the fall.
We decided to sit outside as well, legs crossed, hands clasped in laps, not talking, not meeting each other’s eyes, sipping tap water at regular intervals as if it were Brunello. I consulted the menu, unfolded my checkered napkin, rearranged the cutlery. I avoided looking at Amo because I was afraid if I did, I would stare. She was turning heads.